Tips about traveling on millionaire's budget

JIM MULLEN

The Village Idiot

Published 6:00 pm, Thursday, December 25, 2008

I like to travel. Oh, not the part where I have to spend eight hours in a car. Or the part where I spend 10 hours in the airport waiting for a new piece of "equipment" to arrive. Or spending 10 more hours on a plane with my knees scrunched up to my chin, or standing at the baggage carousel for an hour watching it go round and round before I realize that everyone on my flight has already gotten their luggage and that mine is never coming out.

No, the part I like best about traveling is reading about it in magazines I find in my seat pocket on the plane. These trips always seem to go much smoother than mine. One story was full of advice on how to make my trip worry- and hassle-free.

"Ship your luggage ahead of time to the five-star hotel where you are staying. Call the concierge and make sure he has a car waiting to pick you up at the airport, and since he's on the phone anyway, have him get you dinner reservations at 'Chez Hard to Get Into.' " The article listed several companies that would pack and ship my luggage for me. It would only cost me a few hundred dollars. He did not give me much advice on where to find the few hundred extra dollars.

The writer also gave good advice on which airlines have the best passenger lounges at the airports and that I could join for a yearly fee - usually only a few hundred dollars. He suggested I join all of them. There was a long section on which airlines have the best first-class seats. I was happy to learn that the first-class travelers on my plane were really second-class first-class seats. Sure, they were big and roomy, but they didn't lie down flat so you could sleep as if you were in your own bed at home. Why would you travel if you don't have the comforts of home? Again, he neglected to mention where to find the money for the five-star hotel, the passenger lounges and the first-class seats, which I found to be an odd oversight, considering how detailed the writer was on everything else.

After he arrived, he only ate at the best restaurants, only shopped in the most expensive boutiques and went to celebrity-filled bars and clubs every night. His hotel didn't leave a mint on his pillow, but a desert cart. Could you really expect less for $850 a night?

In the next story, the author wrote about the fabulously interesting people when he went helicopter skiing, about his adventures on a deep-sea fishing charter, about how he outsmarted a carpet dealer in a local bazaar and walked out with a $10,000 rug for only $700! Wow! Anyone can do it if they follow his simple tips. One: fly first class (flat beds, thank you) to Morocco. Two: hire a thousand-dollar guide/translator. Three: shut this stupid magazine. It's obvious that I should be reading financial magazines when I fly, not travel magazines. I asked the flight attendant for one and she said, "Sorry, they're all in first class."

(Contact Jim Mullen, author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo," at jim_mullen@myway.com)